Microsoft (MSFT) -) shares jumped to a record higher in early Thursday trading, lifting the tech giant past Apple (AAPL) -) as the world's most-valuable company as the global AI investment drive continues to boost the biggest tech stocks.
The Redmond, Wash., software giant, which has risen more than 63% over the past year on the back of its market leadership in AI-related technologies and its investment in OpenAI's ChatGPT, is now valued at around $2.88 trillion, just head of Apple's $2.86 trillion.
Microsoft has touted the potential of ChatGPT, a tool that uses human language to process instructions, to close the gap on market leader Google, the eponymous lead product of parent Alphabet. (GOOGL) -)
Investors are betting that AI adoption will help Microsoft — which generated just $3.2 billion in search revenue last year — challenge the market dominance of Google, which churned around $43 billion.
Apple stock has dropped
Apple, meanwhile, has fallen more than 4.3% over the past month amid concern about the strength of its December-quarter earnings and persistent suggestions that iPhone demand will wane over the first half of this year.
Apple's lack of an AI-defined strategy may also be hampering its recent performance, particularly among the so-called Magnificent 7 tech giants, all of which are expected to see significant growth from their AI investments.
Nvidia, (NVDA) -) which earlier this week unveiled a new set of AI-focused chips designed for the broader consumer market, hit an all-time high of $553.46 on Wednesday. The move came on the back of better-than-expected sales figures from Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM) -).
Citing data from an in-house survey, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives argues that AI monetization and use cases are "exploding across the enterprise and consumer landscape," and are boosting the value of tech stocks from Nvidia to Microsoft, Google, Palantir (PLTR) -) and Datadog (DDOG) -).
"Currently, over 50% of all enterprises we recently surveyed see 20+ use cases for Generative AI and 80%+ of all enterprises see 10+ use cases including data analysis, marketing content creation, document editing/summarization, and many more to improve business operations, increase efficiencies, and create a more cost-effective capital structure with the benefits of using Generative AI becoming increasingly clear," Ives said in a recent client note.
Microsoft shares were marked 0.55% higher in early Thursday trading to change hands at $384.88 each. The stock hit an all-time high of $390.68 earlier in the session.
Apple shares were marked 1.1% lower at $184.14 each.
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